Greed behind climate crisis, summit delegate argues

Indigenous people are among those contributing least to the worsening problem of greenhouse gases and climate change, said Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the United Nations General Assembly. However, he said they are the first to feel the impacts of climate change.

Brockmann said during his address at the U.N.-affiliated Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change in Anchorage that progress is being made at the U.N. to address the human rights concerns of indigenous people.

For example, the U.N. set up the Convention on Climate Change, which developed an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle climate change, he said.

"The world is also coming to terms with the problem of global warming," Brockmann said.

About 400 indigenous people from 80 nations are attending the summit. It ends today with a declaration and an action plan, and a call to governments around the world to include indigenous people in any new regimes on climate change.

Conference recommendations will be presented to the Conference of Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December.

Brockmann said what's needed is to reject the "hyper-consumerism" practiced by first-world nations interested mostly in the accumulation of wealth.

David Choquehuanca, the foreign minister of Bolivia, picked up on that theme while addressing the summit on Thursday. He was a stand-in for Bolivian president Evo Morales who could not attend the summit as planned.

"It is the capitalist system that is in crisis," Choquehuanca said. "Our planet Earth is now in a total unbalance."

Choquehuanca said indigenous people need to combine their knowledge with their world view to help save the planet.

Joseph Mokingo Simel, head of the 30-member African delegation at the summit, said that has been one of the problems. The U.N. did not duly consider indigenous people in supporting the carbon market trade among nations in the effort to reduce greenhouse gases, he said.

The emissions trade may actually be hurting indigenous people in Africa and how they can use the land, he said.

"They have no idea how we are coping," he said.

Patricia Cochran, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council hosting the summit, told Simel it was important that the conference recommendations be presented at a "very high level" at the Copenhagen meeting.